(Updated) People are being approached to invest in mango orchards in Thailand on the basis of the more you invest the more profit you get out of the crop.

The company concerned, Irrigation Technology Solutions, promises that its special 'Approtech' technology will produce high yields of up to 350 per cent extra..... Approtech sounds familiar. In fact this is a rescue attempt or revival for the failed company Forestech, which was doing the same thing from the same address as the writer below makes clear.

Roscoe Maloney -
Touchwood.

But potential investors are not told this or the link to a person called Pierre Maloney.

Former employees and investors are trying to salvage the remains and move forward.

I should say efforts are also being made to revive Touchwood, a company which was promoting the growth and sale of Agarwood, which also collapsed leaving many international clients almost penniless. This was run in essence by one Roscoe Maloney. There appears to be little good news from the people behind the Touchwood recovery.

(The Maloneys are two brothers Pierre and Roscoe who have Australian and Sri Lankan citizenship) Mark Oza seems to have been retained as the resident expert.

The thing is Thais know how to grow mangoes and agar trees – and if the formula is so good why not sell direct to the farmers.

After making initial payments. companies run by the Maloneys have a habit of shutting up shop and their directors in the main taking a hike, only to emerge later with another product in the same theme. The new company is at pains to state that there is no connection any more with any Maloney although they say they are taking action against Pierre.

Pierre Maloney -Forestech

Irrigation Technical Solutions is based out of 1401 Pacific Place in Sukhumvit, Bangkok and also has an address in Samut Prakarn.

Forestech was also based out of 1401 Pacific Place.

A representative of Irrigation Technical Solutions said in Bangkok:

"We have taken all clients from Forestech with us. The Maloneys have nothing to do with us and will never be able to set a foot back in Thailand. They (our clients) were all paid their 6 month payment in December."

And I have received this letter from a Mr. Lawrence Rayner the former Sales and Marketing Director of Forestech whose experience is in the financial services industry. He does not state his title with the new company, but I am publishing his letter in full. I should state that I came across ITS having been contacted by one of its marketers who told me there were very good commissions.

From: Laurence Rayner

My understanding is you were a respected journalist, I was under the impression your were supposed to check sources and ask the company for a response, not send a quite frankly defamatory email and then up load a blog.

Might I suggest that if you want the right information, it would have been correct to contact me.

Having been forwarded your blog, I thought I would write to you and let you know the complete story.

I worked with Forestech International along with Dr Mark Oza. Neither Dr Mark or myself were managing partners of any Forestech company.

At no time has Roscoe Maloney been a shareholder, director or in any way involved with that company. Pierre does have many faults, but he is not the same as his brother. However in October last year Pierre left Thailand for many reasons, which I do not wish to address these here.

Sadly this did indeed leave me with any income or the clients of Forestech with any way to receive their 6 monthly income. Please note that since the program started all payments had been paid on time and in full, obviously the end of year payment was not paid.

I being a long term resident in Thailand, decided that action was needed and spoke to various stakeholders. It was agreed there that I would deal with the International clients and another (a successful local business man) would deal with the Thai side. There were a number of reasons for this but to put it simply we did not agree on an appropriate direction.

The revolutionary secret of success - getting water to the fruit

I personally have been involved with Forestry related products for 10 years and have seen and learned what does not work, as much as what does. I do not claim to be an expert on Forestry but have been in business long enough to know to employ those who do.

So to address your questions:

1. Neither Pierre Maloney nor his brother are involved with ITS in any way. We are in fact seeking legal redress against Pierre who is currently in Australia. We will inform our stakeholders of this process as it develops.

2. We did put together a new consortium to pay the international clients there dues, which have now been paid. If you know of anyone who has not been paid please contact me directly?

3. We have secured new Orchards in the Hua Hin area to cover clients ongoing payments, and have made it clear that the mid year payment will be covered partly from these assets and partly from new company investment's cash reserves. Additional assets and the long term proven success of the subsurface irrigation pipe ensure that no other payment will be at risk.

4. We have formed a committee from our investors who will have full and complete access to the Orchard accounts, they have met all shareholders and are completely informed of what is happening and why. This committee is due to start meeting in March and will report to all other stakeholders on a quarterly basis. Again the information given to them is not something I need to share with you.

5. We do not state anywhere that we know more than Thai mango farmers, however we do know a lot about subsurface irrigation systems, which are proven and not well known in Thailand. To give you an idea of how I can tell you this is we have completed extensive projects with various Palaces in Thailand, the Royal Irrigation Department, numerous Universities, as well as projects in India who are our technology partners. We have testimonies and proven results to show this. It would also be worth you noting that in this industry, everyone learns from each other, from university professors, down to the smallest subsistence farmer.

The mango orchard working as investment, has had some teething issues, but what business does not. It is however a very important project for Thailand. To give you one of the many reasons why, farmers here like in most places are getting older is because the younger generations simply does not want to do the work.

The subsurface irrigation technology we add and the time and investment we give to the community, keeps some interested and at the worst gives the farmer the time to find another member of his family to take over the family land. Water conservation and food security are extremely important subjects and as I am sure you will agree, any one trying to find solutions for this should be assisted.

We applaud you attempts to clean up the foreign scammers in Thailand! We are acting in a similar manner, by taking over failed investments with no further investment required by old investors and paying out as promised to those existing investors. We, as I am sure you will agree are acting in a financially and socially responsible manner.

I do extend an invitation to you to come and meet with us either at the Orchard in Hua Hin and or at our offices in Bangkok.

Yours sincerely

Lawrence Rayner

Dear Laurence, Your right to reply is more than welcome. But I would remind you that your and your colleague's history is in financial services and marketing, not in forestry, and of course I would also like to remind you of the following statement on the website of the company you used to work for.

"Integrity – by having a high level of integrity we have great visibility and clarity about our organization and with this visibility all issues are known and corrective action is implemented."

2
comments:

This in from Sho Kinokinya - but I had to severely edit: "Lawrence Rayner has been the puppet of the Maloneys for many years. After leaving Asia Forestry he began selling for Touchwood, before co-founding Forestech. I will not trust him with my money nor will any of my associates, or hopefully anyone who reads this page"

Andrew, they are giving you the opportunity to look over their operation on site or in their offices, I have never heard of a journalist who would not jump at such an offer, any particular reason why you do not wish to?